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OHIP Director Awarded for OASIS Success

Gordon Freymann, M.P.H., Director of the office of health indicators for planning at the Department of Public Health, was awarded the Sellers-McCroan Award at the Georgia Public Health Association Awards Luncheon on April 13.

Freymann conceived, brought to fruition, and has steadily maintained and improved the Georgia Online Analytical Information System, more affectionately known as OASIS. This user-friendly web-based resource brings epidemiology and population data into the hands of users as revealing health information. Numerous query, charting and mapping tools, populated with the user's choice of data, are available at the click of a mouse 24 hours a day.

The tool is used by reporters, students, researchers, grant writers, public health offices, community planners, interested citizens and more. In a typical month, there are more than 35,000 uses of the system. That's more than 200 users per work day hours and more than 3 uses per minute. For every work day hour, five maps are completed through OASIS.

The tool has allowed users easy access to public health data that would have been delayed or denied due to staffing shortages if data retrieval was still dependent on staff programmers, statisticians and support personnel. Without Freymann's leadership, the department would need a total of 230 people working eight-hour days to cover the work accomplished through OASIS. Money saved through the automation of data retrieval has allowed the tool to be continuously enhanced and improved.

The high-quality and ease of use of OASIS has helped to enhance the brand and reputation of the Division of Public Health for years and now does the same for the Department of Public Health.

"It's a tremendous honor for me and all of us in the Office of Health Indicators for Planning to receive the Sellers-McCroan award," Freymann told PHWEEK. "It represents a lot of hard work and dedication that went into making quality data easily accessible to more people for local health decision-making, as well as help fortify a data-driven culture where public health decisions are based on quality data."